Budapest

Budapest Parliament Buildings at Dusk

After our visit to Esztergom is our 48 km drive into our hotel in Budapest. We arrive before rush hour and getting settled was pretty easy. Out for a bit of a walk and a nice meal before bed we realize we are really well situated for taking in the sites.

As most already know Buda   Pest is made up of two cities with Buda being the west city (older) and Pest the east city (newer). Buda has the old castle, St Matthias Church

St Matthias at Dusk

and the Fishermans Bastion.

Parliament from Fishermans Bastion

Pest has more modern hotels, restaurants etc.

From our experience now, we would say Pest is much busier, noisier, with Buda being more congested, and slower.

Shoes on the Danube Jewish Memorial

The best treat of our stay was a small restaurant called the Hungarian Bistro. It was so good the first day we ate there after seeing the “Shoes on the Danube”,

about 4 blocks away, that we made a special trip back there a second day . The first day we had Duck, and the 2^nd time Goulash soup, and then an appetizer of Hungarian Gnocchi with sour cream and fried bacon bits. This place was outstanding! And they even give away in a nice folder, a copy of the soup recipe.

From our hotel/apt. we visited the chain Bridge, St Matthias Church, the Bastion, the old Castle, and used the vantage point for taking pictures of the Parliament buildings, the most common picture in Budapest.

Parliament Buildings by Day

Then back over the Chain bridge to the Shoes on the Danube, another reminder of the Nazi era where they had the Jews take off their footwear since it was valuable, before they shot them and pushed them off into the Danube river.

That evening we retraced our steps again to see the city at night and enjoy the night lights and activity.

Chain Bridge at Night

Our 2^nd full day saw us attend the Market hall where we bought spicy paprika and a jar of very hot sauce made from paprika. This was after having sampled it at the Hungarian Bistro. From there after lunch we hiked out to Heroes Square. Originally we were going to go out to the Baths there as well but learned that the outdoor baths had closed the day before. Even though the weather was 25-27C each day we were there the outdoor baths were now considered closed for the winter.

St Matthias at Night

After 3 nights we headed back out toward Esztergom and to cross back into Slovakia to follow the Danube for a while on its way upstream to Bratislava. This was a Saturday morning and everyone in Budapest was heading out there was well. The 48 km drive was bumper to bumper most of the way, but after Esztergom on the Slovakian side it was a nice drive into Bratislava.